Category: Humor

Posted in Humor

When Happiness Frustrates (or Was Oedipus Crazy or What?!)

Posted on by Neal Saye

So I’m approaching my 100th post on this happiness blog, which I started at the beginning of the year.  I have tremendously enjoyed writing and researching and taking pictures and being silly and interviewing and hopefully encouraging readers toward happier lives.  It’s SO much fun, and it can be SO … FRUSTRATING!

Let me explain.

(Listen, I just proofread the big tangent talk below, and my advice is as follows:  1. Do not read it if you don’t like getting sidetracked or running down rabbit trails.  2. Do not read if you’re too empathic of others’ pain.  3. Do not read if you’ve ever hurt your eye.  4. Do not read if you enjoyed Oedipus Rex.  And 5, you probably shouldn’t read it if you’re Greek or know a bunch of Greek people or rented My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  If you’re skipping ahead–and by the way, I would probably skip ahead if you are or were a mama’s boy–I placed a line of ******* where you can pick up the story safely.  Okay, there.  Gosh, what I do for my readers.)

Remember that whole mess when Oedipus gouged his eyes out?  Goodness, I just thought about that–and I usually never think about what I write–and had to cover my eyes with BOTH hands to deal with the imagined agony.  Didn’t he use a brooch off his mother’s, I mean his wife’s (oh Lord) gown to do it?  I know he was upset and all, but COME ON.  To get an idea of the horror of this insane act, do this quickly:  put a tiny drop of Dollar Tree shampoo on your right little finger and open your right eye really wide.  Now touch your eyeball very briefly, and see how it feels.  (I have to do this regularly in the spring and fall for my allergies.  Honestly, I do.)  See??  It hurts BAD, right?  (Spring and fall, btw, are my weepy seasons.)  Now help me understand HOW on earth Oedipus could plunge a golden bear claw (or whatever) pin directly INTO one EYEball … and then the other!

Dramatic IRONY (as well as eye fluid, i.e. vitreous humor, “humor”?! really?) basically oozed everywhere in the play.  Seer Tiresias was blind but “saw” metaphorically.  (You are remembering all of this from world lit, correct?)  And that nosey, noisy Greek chorus kept yapping and gossiping, Harper Valley PTA-ishly, about the dysfunctional goings-on.  Like they didn’t have skeletons in their own closets.  That part grated on my nerves.

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Okay, here’s the Oedipal connection to my happiness blog: the ridiculous DRAMA and IRONY of me getting so upset and UNhappy from time to time as I am directly in the very process of writing about happiness!!!  And nine times out of ten, the unhappy bringer is technologically produced.  Let me give you a couple of examples.  Source of Frustration #1: uncooperative pictures and images.  For some reason, when I first place them in my WordPress media library, pictures often look like this photo of me when I found an empty but colorfully festive table at the Savannah Book Festival and wished I had a bunch of literary-themed cupcakes or something to sell:

So calmly, and at this point still in charge, I hit the “edit” button and take 60-90 seconds trying to decide which arrow to press to rotate pic in the right direction:

Thanking Jesus that nobody is around to see me messing up this child-simple task so badly, yet at the same time feeling glad that finally I can get the picture straight, I hit the arrow button again:

Finally, in tears and wondering two things: if there would be any reader interest in a hate blog and what on earth possessed me to zip that foolish black jacket all the way up to my throat, I uncaringly and recklessly hit another button:

Whew.

Source of Frustration #2 is what I call “The Rapture.”  When I was a child, I heard a good bit in church about the rapture–that time when (depending on your pre-, a-, and post- end times ideology) believers will be caught up in the air, and others will be left behind.  It never failed that after I heard such a sermon, the next day I would come home from school and NOBODY would be there.  Terrified, I would grab my obviously sinful cocker spaniel Blondie and, both of us whimpering, canvass the neighborhood frantically searching for mama, finally finding her down the street with pink rollers in her hair, getting a home perm and drinking a Yoo-Hoo.  (Sidebar:  I still get nervous when I turn down a popular aisle at Wal-Mart–Seasonal Candy–and find it deserted.)

Well, my Happiness Blog Rapture occurs when I am merrily typing along and, inexplicably, my fingers touch a key or combination of keys, and I delete EVERYTHING I’ve written.  The first time this happened was when I had just completed four items on my initial Five Friday Happy Bringers post.  Then blank.  Supposedly, WordPress autosaves your work, but not during the rapture, it seems.

One of the truths I have gained from my frustration with this blog is that happiness sometimes requires simple perseverance.  Just doing and re-doing when necessary.  And laughing at the falls.  And accepting “what is” and “what happens.”

Today I read a little of the book my older daughter is currently reading–Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman.  In it the author suggests that we Americans could take a French lesson and do a better job of teaching our children how to accept frustration as a necessary and even desirable component of life.  (I probably need a nanny.)

But gosh, sometimes I really want to take the hammer to my brand new laptop!

Posted in Humor

Here’s Where I’m Registered

Posted on by Neal Saye

So yesterday my older daughter Amy took my younger daughter Emily to “register” at Babies r Us.  You may remember that Em is pregnant with twins (a boy and a girl–still need a boy name–send suggestions, even though Emily is very stubborn and keeps rejecting all my perfect names which are derivations of “Neal”).  It seems that a baby shower (well, babies shower) is forthcoming.  You know the drill:  invitee goes to store where female (it’s almost ALWAYS a female who is so feted) has “registered,” looks over list of potential gifts being begged for, avoids the $79.99 item and settles for one between twenty and thirty bucks.  Right?

Now, don’t get me wrong–I’m really happy my daughter is having a baby shower and getting free gifts.  My billfold is also happy.

But I’ve NEVER had a shower.  (Hush, you know what I mean.)  A gift-getting shower.  And since my birthday is January 10, and everybody was out of money after holiday binge shopping, I usually got clearance items for birthday presents when I was growing up …  ALL DONE UP IN LEFTOVER CHRISTMAS WRAPPING PAPER!  (Note to self: therapy talking point.)  There I am, five years old, blowing candles off a hard fruitcake, staring in confusion as my family sings Happy Birthday to me and I try to make sense of my gifts wrapped in Baby-Jesus-in-a-Manger paper.  Didn’t we just celebrate His birthday?

So here’s what I decided to do to correct the wrongs of the past and make things right:  I’m going around and registering myself at various places.  I spent yesterday afternoon doing so.  Here are ten places where I’m registered.  Just saying.

1.  Dunkin Donuts

2.  Moe’s

3.  Liposuction.com

4.  Armani  (Only if get #3)

5.  Barnes and Noble

6.  The Dollar Tree  (Why pay more for party supplies and hydrogen peroxide?)

7.  Back in the Day Bakery

8.  Hotels.com

9.  Delta Airlines

10.  Bank of America

Thank you very much.

Posted in Five Friday Happy Bringers, Humor

Five Friday Happy Bringers (4/6/12)

Posted on by Neal Saye

It’s Friday, and even though it has been a couple of weeks since I posted the Happy Bringers, here’s what I’m happy about today:

1.  But before I tell you the first happy bringer, I have a confession.  Gather ’round.  For the past two weeks I have been without my laptop because it bit the byte.  I took it to a computer guy who had the nerve to say I should just throw the piece of junk away.  That really hurt my feelings, but he was right.  So anyway, I have been writing my posts from my iPhone (at least one person needs to tell me, with exclamation, what a grand job I’ve been doing).  By the way, back in February I was at a writing conference, and a presenter explained that one of her students (I think he was a SCAD Atlanta kid, probably with too much money, metallic blue hair on the left side of his head, pipe cleaner jeans and a smirk) wrote an ENTIRE ten-page research paper, complete with documentation ON HIS SMART PHONE.  Me, I have trouble simply texting because my fingers are so fat, and I’m always hitting an adjacent key and ending up with weird combinations of letters which Autocorrect then “corrects” into albeit correctly spelled words, buts ones which are NOT the ones I meant and are often grossly inappropriate, as if I use UrbanDictionary as my thesaurus.  And to make matters worse, I always seem to hit Send at the exact moment I decide to look at the screen for a too-late proofing.  (Me: “Yes, I think you shod bug that booty you’ve been wanting to read.”  Them: “Huh?  Neal, is this you?  What’s going on?  Where are you?”)

The first happy bringer, then, is that I have a new computer, which I took out of the box maybe an hour ago.  The coolest perk is that the keyboard has backlighting.  I haven’t figured out why or what good that is, but like my solid white tie, I’m glad I have it.

2.  So, still on the computer idea, my second happy bringer is my daughter and son-in-law who bought the new computer for me as a gift  (thank you!).  As I have gotten a bit older, I’ve developed this amazing strategy concerning the acquisition of goods and services: “Pout and Mope.”  (For this part of today’s post, please pretend you’re not reading a blog about happiness.  Pretend instead you’re reading a blog about, say, mental instability or the Kardashians.)  Pout and Mope works like this:  If I want something but can’t quite decide whether to buy it or not, or if I simply don’t want to pay for it, I quickly brainstorm strategies for getting myself sort of down emotionally.  To get in this fake-depressed state, I think about, I don’t know, Glenn Beck, or something.  Then I hang out where I think people will feel sorry for me and perhaps buy me what I want.  This works REALLY well if there are such folks at Best Buy, Haverty’s, Diamond Imporium or the Apple Store.

For example, for days I complained and moped that I didn’t have a computer to write my blog on (or to surf the web to “learn more about Jesus,” I added, since I thought that might get me a few nearing-Easter points) AND that my eyes were getting in pretty rough shape from having to squint so much with the iPhone blog posting AND also that I’m sure not getting any younger AND we should all do good for others while they’re still alive.  And then, WHAM!  A week later I’m writing on a lighted keyboard.

Moral of story:  If you see me on the street, and your first reaction is “Oh my gosh, WHAT could be wrong with him?!,” just buy me something.  Thank you.

3.  Making fun of Riboclavin.  You remember my hypochondriac buddy, right?  Every time he thinks he has a slight fever, in his mind he’s dead as a doornail.  Well, I regret to inform you that the mental deficiency has spread to Mrdillharris … HIS DOG.  Just look below; it’s so sad how people can sink to such depths.  (If you haven’t read Happy Bringer #2 above, don’t.)  The first pic is somewhat normal, a cute dog.  The second, well you be the judge.

I just don’t know what to do.  No clue.

4.  Allegra D

5.  Appreciating the Savannah iDoctor.  A while back, while simultaneously walking down the concrete steps just outside my second floor office at Georgia Southern AND checking my texts, I saw it happen a millisecond before it happened.  My phone slipped from my fingers (what caused that??) and flipped twice before crashing onto the first step below, then bouncing like a slinky onto the second, then the third.  Picking it up, Humpty Dumpty-ish, the face was, of course shattered.  I had a hip but thin case at the time.  I wanted to hurt or flunk somebody but instead called Apple who said via recording to send the phone in and expect a two-week return time and a large bill.  Riboclavin (from above–he comes in handy occasionally) told me about the Savannah iDoctor, who specializes in fixing iPhones broken by klutzes.  I was amazed: I dropped it off on Wilmington Island at 9 am, grabbed a sausage-egg biscuit and returned forty-five minutes later to find a brand-new-looking phone and a bill half what Apple asked.  (And a recommendation to get an Otterbox.)

Check Eric out if you need similar help:  www.SavannahiDoctor.com

Have a wonderfully fun and joyful weekend and Easter!

Posted in Humor

The REAL Definition of NEAL

Posted on by Neal Saye

So I have this lower section of a bulletin board in my study, and on it I have placed ideas about future blog posts.

I didn’t really have anything particular in mind today so just grabbed one of the notes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first time I ran across urbandictionary.com, I thought, “Oh cool, a site to learn about city life–and to get clear on terms such as ‘mixed-use’ and ‘streetscape.'”   Boy, was I wrong!  You been there?  It’s a “dictionary” which is “written” by you and me, by visitors to the site.  Who needs Webster?!

Take the word “joy,” for example.  You would think, with writing a blog on the subject, I would know what it means, at least in a ballpark figure sort of way, right?  But no, oh no, I’m obviously clueless because according to UD, joy can mean “the hottest chick in the bar, who somehow always manages to get out of trouble.  Can be injury prone, but is a great kisser”  or “someone who is half-Jewish; a combination of the words Jew and goy.”  Boy, do I feel dumb.  Seems that a professorship ain’t worth nothing these days.

But refusing to leave well enough alone, and feeling a bit creative and trickster-ish, I came up with the masterful plan to go to UD and write/publish a definition for my name, Neal.  Again, urbandictionary beat me to the punch:  there are 12–TWELVE–definitions of Neal already there!  Here’s a sampling:

1. neal
1 Naturally born genious; prodigy.
2 Perfection.
3 The most eminent, pure, intelligent, gifted form of the human mind and being.
“That guy is almost as smart as Neal, but in all actuality he could never come close.”

Isn’t that cool how they use the word being defined in a sentence–to facilitate learning, I suppose?

Another UD def of Neal:

2. neal
cutter king.

god.

everything the average human is not.

perfection.

“Neal has entered the courts, all hail.”

I was on a Name High at this point!  You DO realize I’m not making this stuff up, right?  [Go check it out for yourself if you doubt me.  Like my seventh grade teacher Mr. Gene Norton doubted me when I told him that there was a yellow jacket attached to my scalp under my (popular, at the time) hair spray.  I remember feeling as if an ice pick was puncturing my head every five to seven seconds.  Somehow, I kept smiling.  Always do.]

Well, I kept reading urbandictionary.com’s definitions for my name.  Btw, here’s a rule you might wanna keep in mind with UD:  DO NOT KEEP READING. IT ALWAYS LEADS TO POOP AND/OR GENETALIA.

Definition #8:

8. neal
a nerd that you just have to love because he is so unattractive. he often gives hugs and acts embarassed when asked personal quesions.
Fally: “Haha, i love that kid!”

Uranus: “Ya,i  know. hes such a neal.”

Tears began to well up at this point, but I couldn’t stop myself.  Could you?

Def # 10:

10. Neal
Someone that has no friends,depends on his parents to stand up for him, can’t do anything for him self.Thinks everyone likes him and has no clue that he sucks as a human being.Talks about everyone else because he feels shitty about himself-Sad waste of life!
Person 1: “I need some gas for my car! Can I borrow  $10.00?
Person 2: “Quit being a “Neal” and get a job!”
Person 1: ” No one ever helps me out!!”
Person 2:  “Thats because you have no friends, and besides you’re a “Neal”!”

By this time, in the fetal position and whimpering “Mama,” I began to get angry–especially after reading definition 11–don’t read it!– and decided that I WOULD DECIDE WHAT NEAL MEANS!

I’m Neal!  And here’s what Neal means:

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Neal
1. a good guy
2. an encourager
3. a happiness bringer
4. the ruler of the world (after 12/12/12)
“Whatcha mean you don’t know who’s in charge now? Didn’t you read the paper? Neal is. And I’m glad. You should be too.”

by NRuler on Mar 12, 2012

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P.S. NRuler is me.  Well defined.